TAIL OF TWO

I'm dealing with something that feels like a double...I want to think double rainbow or double angel or duet but what I'm feeling is a double vortex, a spinning downward, a double shadow or a double cross. Maybe I am reeling with the feeling of being such a triple Libra. Everything...each choice, each voice, each idea comes with it's other side and often I am rendered paralyzed by ambivalence. I was just given a once in a lifetime opportunity to sail the Caribbean Seas with my family for a month. I was actually down there with them and enjoyed hanging out with them without any access to TV or computer or even cell phone. I spent a day sailing and hanging out with sea turtles in Carlisle Bay Antigua. I imagine that a healthy, whole-hearted and creative spirit would have chosen to seize the day and even though I would be the only female aboard, I would have the vision to embrace the opportunity. I had a Dad who wanted sons and borrowed boys to go fishing with. I can't escape the sense of having been a disappointment to him simply from being female. I know he loved me but his disappointment was palpable and though he was a product of his era, he also was an echo of the culture I grew up in that quite visibly devalued women...and in some ways, continues to today. I had an invitation to have a great adventure and to be "one of the guys".

I have a mother who is a model at live and let live. She is a master of allowing others to do their thing, while she chooses to stay home. She always stayed home when we were young and Dad took us skiing. It was her way of taking care of herself. I have internalized this lesson deeply.

So here I am. Alone. Alternately relishing my solitude and grieving my choice as an act of cowardice. I have 2 options. I can berate myself for choosing to stay home alone and see it as an act of cowardice...myself as a boat afraid to sail, afraid to be seen as a female nuisance, a voice of anxiety...afraid to be on board a boat where any female roles would fall on my by default. Afraid of getting seasick, getting up in the night to pee in a closet, afraid of stiff wind and the possible worst case senario...any one of them. This is the whirling vortex of self critism and beating myself up. A state of mind that I have spent a lifetime wrestling.

Once upon a time, my big fear was of being alone. I might also choose to see my choice as a creative resurrection, a deep drink at a wellspring of wild water. I don't need to force a metaphor to rationalize my choice. Perhaps I made my choice out of a deeper self knowledge than I give myself credit for. Maybe I don't want endless hours of a wet crack or getting up in the night many times to use the loo...the water closet, the head. Maybe I don't care to cook on a swinging stove or fall into roles projected onto me. Maybe a cool mossy cave in a deep wood stream is where my journey takes me. Some moments I am filled with love for my sane choice to let the men do a guy thing without me. Sometimes I hate myself for staying home when I could have been a part of the adventure. I sob and pray for direction toward my own bliss and wind in my female sails. I sob for my lost opportunity. I sink into the spiral of negative judgement only to hear some distant voice telling me to get up and go out into the woods and just listen and smell and feel the song of birds. Yesterday I got completely lost walking in the woods with Sadie. I got so lost I was scared. But I found a robin nesting on the ground. She up and flew when we walked into her space. I only knew her to be a robin because I discovered her nest full of 5 blue eggs. I was mystified by her choice to nest on the ground...just as I am mystified by my choice. I found my way out and made it home. Got laughing at myself because though it felt like ages, I was only gone for 2 and 1/2 hours. Something Stephen said once to me is what put me on the right trail He said...if you ever get lost, just keep the sun on the right side of your face and you'll come out to the road...somewhere on Intervale Rd. I hear his voice even though he isn't here. Anyway...I'm writing about this inner conflict and argument between my 2 brains because I find when I write about it, I give voice to the more positive option and in fact, somehow, by listening to my inner writer, I feel the presence of a friend...someone who knows me better that I know myself...someone who gets ignored too much and who has to scream and cry to be noticed and who has to fall apart to be put together. Someone who can lead me to reconnect with my heart's desire and who can heal the vibrational pattern that created heart failure in my physical body in 2003. I can look at myself in a new light. It is quite possible that my choice to come home was not a symptom of a failed heart but a heartfelt gesture of self care. My present moment may be awakening me to a re-framing of my self perception...and an opportunity to launch myself into a journey of self love. Why does that hurt so much?

NECTAR FROM FLOWERS

Just last Monday I was swimming and sunning on a beach in Antigua. It was hot...summery, and I was aware of myself being grateful to be living in Maine because I'd never do well living in a hot climate. Today its 45 degrees and I haven't seen sun since I returned. Its too cold to plant and I fear if I did, the seeds would rot. My window planted seedlings are tiny with long leggy stems that can barely stand up. What a different set of gardening variables from last year. There is a plant in Antigua called the Century Plant. It grows in hardscrabble soil made up mainly of sand and small rocks. It grows out of the volcanic sediments that made the island originally. The dirt it grows in doesn't have much capacity for retaining moisture but it's leaves are cactusy complete with defensive sharps like thorns. It has an immense lifespan but it flowers only once every hundred years. I am inspired by it's example of patience and perseverance and humbled by it's longevity. It is quite the opposite of the Night Blooming Cereus...another plant that inspired me once to write a poem about it's fleeting moment of fragrant blossoming. The Night Bloomer must be at least 7 years old before it has it's first blossom. When it does flower, the flower bud emerges from the side of a flat succulent leaf that grows all helter skelter amid various shaped shoots and leaves. The blossom is breathtaking...complex, enormous and fragrant...so fragrant the you can get a headache if you happen to witness five blossoms at one time. One flower will spread aroma throughout the entire house. But...the flower opens at dusk and by the following dawn, it's life is passed. It flowers for a few brief hours and then...it's gone.

Maybe it's because I'm 58 instead of 24, but my awe and respect is inspired more by the Century Plant than the Night Bloomer. The Night Bloomer can have seven or eight flowers blossoming at one time for one night year after year. It takes 100 years of life before you see a flower like this one. I enjoy that thought. Why? Because I don't really feel like I've flowered yet. I have always known that I am a late bloomer but how can a bloom be late? Doesn't nature bring the flower to bloom when it's meant to bloom? When all effort to keep the bud closed falls to the wayside, the flower can't help itself and it opens. I feel the resistance of the bud that doesn't want to open...that strives to keep everything under wraps. I see the same phenomenon in my crab apple tree here in Bethel. It has been in the same limbo of full buddedness since I returned from Antigua. It resists opening to the cold...wind and drizzle. Everything awaits that moment when the warm love of sunshine invites out the inner part of the flower and voila...it blossoms. Its really quite hopeful to think that the Century flower is 100 years in the making. That makes my 58 years seem like a flash in time...and it reminds me that blossoming is not an act of will. Something deep inside is building layer on layer and when it can't keep itself held in any more it will feel the presence of warm light and...pop...it will open. Not late, not forced, not anything except what it is when it is. It will be the great great great great great grandchild of this green headed hummingbird that will sip sweet nectar from the next flowering of this particular Century Plant.

Maybe it is like that for dreams too...that one generation dreams a dream but the blossoming of that dream may not occur for several generations. Mmmmm. I do like thinking about that. Thanks Century Plant.

COMING HOME TO MYSELF

The family vacation is over. The time went so fast I might as well have been eating an ice cream. I flew home on Wednesday and it took 3 airplanes, getting lost in the Chelsea fog and a quick sleepover at Moms before I could drive to Maine and really come home. I'd been gone for 8 days and my sails felt full and my heart light. I had no access to TV or Internet or telephone. I'd completely cut the cord. No news, no terror, no communication, good or bad except with the three men I was travelling with...and that exchange was extraordinary. When I left the hotel in a taxi at 5:30 AM, I was setting sail on my own adventure and feeling confident the men would have a great passage following the gulf stream up to the Virgins, the Bahamas and then Florida.

Sadie was wiggle-wagging her tail nubbins in celebration of my return and the house seemed to welcome me too. I never heard the world was due to end today and it was odd that the media would zero in on something fantastical and scary when I thought news was supposed to focus on whats really happening. So much for my beliefs. Now it is Saturday. I need to hear something and my brain goes zipping around like a black fly looking for a warm crevasse. I made the mistake of googling the weather in the Caribbean and watching the 10 PM news. I gave my mind junk food and now it's spinning a sweet trap of nameless dread. Here in Bethel it is pouring rain and the black flies are thick and the grass is so long and wet that it will take 2 days to dry enough to mow. I realize I have created a challenge for myself.

This is the first time in 28 years that Stephen has been away for more than 3-4 days. I stand at the doorway of a month of just me and my girl. My garden is feeding me asparagus and rhubarb and I have lots of chives and fresh herbs to add to my meals. I can eat what I want, when I want and I can write in bed and walk around naked. I haven't had this much wild space for just me since before I met Stephen. It's delicious. But it too will pass quickly if I can practice happiness. There is my challenge. I have to correct the mistaken belief that my happiness depends on someone else. As a child I was a sucker for the rescue of a prince or the coming of the saviour...fairy tale endings were the goal but they always relied on someone other than the heroine...and future promises. So...here I am catching myself in waiting mode...waiting for a call, waiting for a message, waiting for the perfect moment wondering what the hell am I waiting for? Actually all I'm waiting for is myself to step up to the plate and act on my own behalf. I know that sounds basic and simple and adolescent. Most women wake up to this truth long before their late 50s. Guess I've overslept...ate too much of that poisoned apple or something. I always thought if I just tried hard enough I could be one of the guys...I could be as adventurous, as brave, as devil may care. Hard work, determination and denial of my tender feelings, fears and needs was my path. How could I expect to achieve any kind of self love when my most basic female self was my enemy?

So here I am...in the pouring rain of Bethel Maine waiting nervously for word from the three chambers of my heart...Stephen, Sam and Will... choosing not to spin off in to a panic...choosing not to dwell on Armegeddon...choosing not to hate myself for not going with them because I can't stand hours and days of a wet crack...choosing not to hate myself for not being one of the guys. I'm on my own journey. I'm captain of my own ship...no...not Ghostboat. My boat is called ELISE and I'm sailing home...to myself.

Dreams Come True

I wonder. Heading out for our first family vacation in years to hang in the warmth of the sun and to snorkel and sail after a year of health crises and loss. My Dad always talked about wanting to take the whole family away on vacation and yet he died before he was able to manifest that dream. Because of all those comments made over the years, I wonder if a family vacation in Antigua is a personal dream of mine, or if I am nurturing the unfullfilled dream of my Dad. Do our children inherit our dreams like our DNA? Or or genetic health predispositions? And if so...is my Dad's conciousness somewhere he can appreciate the dream being made real. Does it matter where the original dream seed came from? As long as we tend it patiently until it sets forth its bud?Maybe some dreams resemble perenniels....or trees. Someone back in time planted the original seed and when I became a person who tends the cherished family dream, my job is to keep the weeds away and to trust the growth and blossoming will happen in its own time. That idea makes me happy. That means its possible that Sam and Will might one day tend some of the seeds I've planted and that the fruition of their dreams may be offshoots of some of my own. What a wonderful bone to chew while we set out on this journey as a family. I'm sure I'll have more to say on this when I say good bye to the men and return to Maine to plant my food garden and savor the moments that we shared together in the Carribean. Just now...I feel certain I'm off to open a great gift.

FIRE AND WATER

I've been thinking about my Mom alot as Mothers Day approaches and that is understandable as I am old enough now to grasp some of the finer gifts she has bestowed upon me...the more subtle lessons of living that come from female bonding. I am blessed to have my Mom still alive and still showing me the lessons available in aging gracefully. So lucky. I have had the contrast close and present for 6 years as Stephen's Mom was not so lucky. But today I was caught off guard by some intense waves of feeling for my Dad. It all started right when I woke up and noticed that the big cleansing burn we had on Tuesday was still burning today...Friday. The wind was blowing up the hill and must have dried and fanned the underlying embers so that now...I could see the hot glowing coals. My initial job of the day was to put out the fire. James H. Ballou was a smoky in WW2 and served the country in England and France putting out airplane fires. It was perhaps his undoing as his death came at age 74 from asbestos related lung cancer. He's been gone since 1995. Funny how one small thing can bring home the loss of a loved one just as raw and sore as when it happened so many years ago. So I put out the bonfire with a hose...water does the trick.

Stephen and my two sons, Sam and Will are preparing for a Carribean adventure. They will be bringing up a 52 foot sloop from Antigua to Rhode Island with the Captain of Ghostboat, Rick Rosenberg. I believe it will be an epic adventure and a rare bonding opportunity for 2 adult sons and their father. The starting point of the journey is from Antigua.

My Dad was in love with the island of Antigua. He was also a huge fan of sailing and the sea. He left home at 17 to be a merchant marine and sailed the coast of South America leaving some cool journals for us to read. His passion for sailing lasted his lifetime and he spent his last years getting out on the ocean as a member of the Eastern Yacht Cub race committee. In fact his last request was to sprinkle his ashes on the sea but to be sure to throw some into the engine room of the Race Committee boat. Both wishes were carried out with love. Dad had a thing for Antigua that was almost like the ardor one has for a lover. He became a frequent visitor and even did some kind of architecture work at Shirley Heights just up from English Harbor where his friends Dez and Lisa Nichols were managers or owners of the Admirals Inn. He dreamed of one day having enough money to take the whole family on vacation there. Thats 4 out of 5 daughters, my mother and at the time...all the sons in law. He lived to know 4 out of 5 of his grandsons...missing out only on his namesake James who was born a few months after his passing; and his only granddaughter. Dad was a small business owner of a Salem Archetectural firm and he struggled during bad economic years though over all he made a good living and put all his girls through the best education he could afford. He had big dreams. In some ways he was more suited to being an artist...he loved painting and always imagined the time he's spend painting watercolors and oils. He travelled the routes of the French Impressionists and adored Earnest Hemmingway. I think the daily grind of a large family and a 6 1/2 day work week created disappointment and frustration for him as did having girls. He openly wished he'd had sons and that was a mistake as it left all his 5 daughters thinking of themselves as a dissappointment. So many of his dreams never manifested. Anyway...Stephen was meant to take the boat up from Antigua with Rick last year. Because he was due to go on that journey, he went to the doctor for some vague symptoms to get a clear bill of health before going to sea. Hours later he was in an ambulance on the way to Boston for a quadruple bypass. Luckily he was not to become a ghost on Ghostboat and he remains grateful that the trip was planned and gave him the impetus to get checked. He was also scheduled to take the boat back down to Antigua in November but because of a surgical glitch was not able to take the trip. Sam went and did 22 days at sea returning with some big dreams of his own.

Stephen missed Will's graduation from college because of his heart crisis. So last May he had unexpected surgery and a very long recovery that culminated in his Mothers passing on the first day of spring. It was a blessing and a release as her quality of life was consumed by dementia. It has been a year of cleansing fire and clearing debris and postponed plans. This morning as I put out the spray of water to quench the fire, I felt my Dad as if he was present.

In a few days we will all fly down to Antigua and celebrate Will's graduation with a long awaited family vacation. Am I doing this for Dad? Am I doing my own dream? Does it even matter? For 7 days we will have a family vacation in Antigua and I will fly home while the men deliver a boat. I wonder what I'll deliver? I feel like my hull is barnicle free and my sails are set and awaiting the wind. I sense my fathers breath and feel him smiling...he's so looking forward to some bawdy laughter and tropical trees. I put out the fire by turning on the water, dreams from my father become his daughters...Island love and sailing streams of video and music ...there is a wonderous alchemy at work. No I'll never be his son. No..I won't be one of the men delivering the Ghostboat. But that doen't mean I can't have my own journey of adventure with the trade winds in my sails...I'm just not sure yet how it will all come to be.

DIRT IS MY CHURCH...

And my passionate effort is to grow my congregation...who am I seeking to attract? Worms of course. Growing the family food supply has become way more than growing the family food supply. The truly meaningful things in life have a way of doing that...digging in and growing deep roots that reach out and branch in all directions. Some people tell me I have a dirty mind. I must admit, I do love the bawdy humor of tasteful profanity and sometimes I am critisized for my turn of phrase. I far prefer the twist of wordplay to the other kind of dirt...gossip. At least a profame double entendre doesn't seek to diminish another person the way that gossip does. I need to tell myself this when I feel that rise of redness in my face when I have blurted out something that surprises and embarrasses even me. The risk of practicing bawdy humor is that your efforts can offend the pious. I admit...sometimes I have a dirty mind. I have been mulling over this quality in myself as I seem to have startled a few people with my irreverance. Today as I hiked up the hill behind my house I had a thought.

It went kind of like this. Mmmmm...dirt. Where I used to imagine a T-shirt declaring Earth Is My Church...I think I'd need to update it now to DIRT IS MY CHURCH. How can it be a church? How can dirty jokes be holy? How can a middle age woman in muck boots covered with mud and her fingernails painted with halfmoons of dark brown earth beneath them stand her "appearance"? Look at her clothes. They are dirty too. And her shoes are muddy and her mind is dirty. What is a woman to do? And the more I thought about it, the clearer I was. There is embedded in the dirt...whether it is a garden dirt, a pile of manure, a dirty joke or a twisted take on a word with many meanings...embedded in the dirt and the profane is the seed of the sacred. My God...we all are products of a sexual act and we all sustain our aliveness by eating what grows from the seeds planted in the dirt and we enrich our dirt by heaping on the shit of various birds and animals... and we STILL eat what grows from the dirt.

Why be embarrassed by those who become offended by slightly profane humor? Why not be proud? My dirt is full of life.(and my life is full of dirt) My dirt is fertile. My dirt grows wonderful vegetables and my appearance reflects my employment... I garden. I dig the dirt and rake and hoe and I plant and weed and I make things grow. My mind is obsessed with my dirt. I like to plant seeds in the dirt. To some...my origin began in a dirty act. For heavens sake...why is it dirty if everyone and everything does it? Why would I worship with a dogma that makes a religion out of denying the sacredness that is embedded in the daily dirt of living? Why would I seek to remove all the sexual beings from my dirt? I want the squirmy worms to come forth and multiply. I want them crawling and tunnelling through my dirt. I want to hear a juicy dirty joke now and then and I love to add a bit of spice with a double entendre. I come from a family tree with many limbs that worked as ministers and spread the word of God. I have tied myself up in knots trying to understand spiritual truths from all manner of cultures. The brain can become a flaky leader when attempting to make sense of religion and philosophy. Heaven has no foundation under it unless you begin by building on the dirt. So having become a nearly full time gardener, I have discovered more sense in the poetry of the tree. The tree is a wonderous minister and a kind and gentle teacher. It can only reach upwards as far as it grows downwards. It grasps and carresses the dirt...the soil...the soul. It nourishes from deep within the earth and yet it is always reaching for heaven. Dirt is holy. Dirt is sacred. Dirt is alive...and my heart is clear...I am holy...sacred and alive...and I am dirty. If you find that offensive, I'll take it as manure. I'm a good shit. Ah. Next? A hot bath.

FIRED UP

The weather since April Fools Day has been wet; starting with the 8 inches of snow we had April 1st and flowing right into now with a stretch of rain that looks like it will last for a week. I can't tell you how long this winter seems. I feel kind of rusty and creaky and cranky. I'm very fond of winter most years and wholly enjoy the snow and all the fun that goes with it but by April, I'm ready to kiss it all off and open my arms to the soft warm air of the melting woods and the dark earth of the garden season. I have learned that what used to be the first real month of spring in Massachusetts, in Maine is mud season. I think I might be able to get along without it...or perhaps I should say I think April in Maine could get along without me. It actually hurts to be this hungry for the sun and the warmth. Tomorrow is May 5th and there isn't any sun in the forecast till Sunday...even then they are calling for a partly cloudy day. So...to keep my spirits up, I rely on focusing on anything spring that is not mud or the weather. Phrases like bogged down, just ducky, muck and mire...there are many if you dwell there long...begin to suck me in like the garden mud and make it impossible for me to take a step. Have you ever had to break the suction of mud against a muck boot? It can be a daunting task especially if you are a bit lame from a ski injury and there have been a few moments of near panic when I think I might not be able to free myself. So thats how it goes for me and my thoughts, if allowed to dwell on the sucky mucky mud and rain puddles drowning my worms...my thoughts just spiral downward in a cycle of stuck in the muck. Yuck. The whole year was consumed by Stephen's open heart surgery recovery and the last days of his recently released mother. There are lots of deep ruts I could let myself sink into but for the fact that this year we will finally celebrate Stephen recovery, Will's college graduation and all of the blessings of our life with the second family vacation of our lives. Yep. We are headed to the Caribbean for some turquoise water and trade winds.

Being a person who hates shopping, I find myself without summer attire or even beach towels, so we have been forced to do some of that dreaded shopping. We actually enjoyed ourselves and the day flowed from overwhelmed with spring cleanup, to hiring help to getting ourselves a fire permit so we could burn the leaves and brush and debris from last year. Movement is key when the sludge gets your thinking. Without effort at all, we had a cleansing fire and the workout of hauling various debris to throw on the fire. A purifying fire. An opportune time to burn the five years of financial papers that we cleaned out of our office space. That bag was nearly sixty pounds . The feeling of relief was amazing. I felt lighter and happier than I have in 6 weeks. The beautiful bonfire was like a burning sunshine in my heart as years of accumulated stuff was boiled down to its basic earth elements and returned to the ashes. An undefined heaviness was somehow lifted. Suddenly I'm feeling lighter, fuller and freer. Gee that was easy medicine. Should have done it ages ago. Today is pouring rain...again. Perfect for dowsing a fire. Perfect for cooking soup and making turkey pie and baking ginger snaps. Suddenly the weight of the rainy day becomes the impetus to create.

It feels almost like flight. And this morning as we had our coffee, the first Baltimore Oriole of the season came to my hummingbird feeder and posed for my camera. Baltimore Oriole symbolically is a return of sunshine and light in all aspects of the home and family life and her gift is the weaving of new sunshine into relationships and for me...into my thoughts. The bright orange breast and startling chipper song is a welcome harbinger of summer and my heart begins to sing. I haven't written much in the blog lately...but today I realized that if the blog becomes a vent of celebration for my life's blessings, then I might retrain my mind to stop venting crap...thus making me feel lighter and offering some of that lightness to whoever should peruse this blog. I may also want to write more. But first a week in the turquoise sea...to listen to the angel and parrot fish and to stand in a bathing suit and let my body be taken by the trade winds. Thanks to the fire and the orange song of the oriole...I'm impervious to the week of rain and so ready to take flight...Yep. I'm all fired up.